Friends 2 Lovers 2 | 4.28.23
Can't stop fallin' for my friends
What else is there to say? These stories are about friends with a lot of history who are about to take a leap into something more. For the first friends-to-lovers roundup, as well as a bit from me about why I don’t generally find the trope compelling (present curated list excluded!), check that out here.
My Favorite Half-Night Stand by Christina Lauren. I originally rated this book a 4, then I reread it a few months later and it graduated to 4.5. I think it might be because there are a lot of main characters in this book and perhaps my first read suffered from general overstimulation, but regardless: fun book. Good times.
Millie and Reid are both college professors and part of a very close friend group alongside fellow professors Ed, Alex, and Chris. After a game night where the five of them lament their lack of promising romantic options and the fact that a big fancy gala for the school is coming up, Reid “calls” Millie as his date (while the other ostensibly straight guys in the group fight over Reid, offended he wouldn’t take one of them instead). Later, Reid drives Millie home and they unexpectedly hook up but agree that, while it was WAY better than they could have imagined, they gotta take a step back to ensure their friendship and friend group aren’t affected. Hence, only a half-night stand. They also agree that they can’t be dates to the gala anymore, and they launch a dating pact for their whole friend group to try out online dating and build each other dating profiles so none of them are dateless by the time the gala rolls around.
Things get complicated when Millie, after ribbing from her friends over her boring dating profile, secretly makes a new profile under her middle name with a more anonymous photo of herself, ends up matching with Reid, who doesn’t realize it’s her. They have so much chemistry in their messages, though, and she doesn’t want to give him up yet, which is awkward considering he’s also talking to another woman who ISN’T her, and they keep accidentally hooking up in real life, so Reid is torn between what he thinks is three women (a perfectly nice lady who doesn’t matter, the woman whose face he’s never seen but is vulnerable and honest and amazing, and his deeply repressed and closed off best friend Millie who he’s having the best sex of his life with).
A lot of this book is epistolary, told in instant messaging group chats, emails, and dating app messages, which you know I’m a huge sucker for. It’s a book about trust, and opening yourself up to both love and pain, and taking care of yourself and those around you. The stakes feel feel, the motivations (even when they lead to poor decisions) feel honest, and the dark night of the soul/groveling section feels genuinely heartbreaking, which makes the happily ever after for Millie and Reid AND their group of friends feel all the more satisfying.
Rating: 4.5/5
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Marriage on Madison Avenue by Lauren Layne. This is a book that feels like a historical romance but is actually contemporary, which is something you can say of a lot of Lauren Layne’s closed door romances, because it’s set in New York City high high society, where the money is old and the social expectations are even older. Audrey Tate and Clarke West have been best friends forever, and when Clarke, a renowned rake, gets cornered by his marriage-minded-mother and his ex who’ve teamed up to reunite them, he tells his mom that she can’t keep setting him up because he’s already engaged… to Audrey. Again. Turns out, Clarke fakes being engaged to Audrey a lot when he wants to get out of an awkward dating situation. Audrey is annoyed, at first, but then she remembers she has her own ex drama circling and an engagement to a beloved (if slutty) NYC bachelor might help overcome it.
See, Audrey’s career is Instagram influencing, and she hasn’t been romantically linked to anyone in a while, leading first to general speculation and then to some nastier rumors that are making it hard to maintain her brand. And a gossip troll has his hands on a story about her- the story that started the series, in fact (this is book 3- I actually haven’t read books 1 and 2 yet). To recap, though, Audrey and two other women showed up to a funeral of their boyfriend, only to find out they all had the same boyfriend. Instead of destroying each other, they became fast friends (clearly they had something in common) and decided to not let this horrific experience define their love lives. It’s still not a good look that Audrey was “the other woman” (especially since the troll is claiming she knew the whole time), so this fake engagement to Clarke might help dispel some of the worse rumors.
Of course, it turns out that the closer Clarke and Audrey get to their fake wedding date, the more it starts to seem kind of… real.
While I definitely prefer Lauren Layne’s spicier books, she’s such a funny writer, and despite writing frequently about subjects (rich NYC socialites) that I would ordinarily disdain, she makes them relatable and fun.
Rating: 4/5
How hot? 🔥(closed door)
The Roommate Risk Talia Hibbert. You really can’t lose with a Talia Hibbert. Honestly, every author this week can generally speaking be fully trusted, even if you don’t think, based on the synopsis, the story will be for you. The Roommate Risk may not be my favorite Talia Hibbert, but it’s still a solid, swoony, sexy story that doesn’t pull punches.
This is a split chronology best friends to lovers story following Rahul, who has loved Jasmine since he first laid eyes on her, and Jasmine, who doesn’t date. Ever. After a single hookup near the beginning of their friendship after which she immediately turned down his invitation to dinner, Rahul insisted he was absolutely fine just being friends, and the thing is, he was. He liked her so much, and if friendship was all she was offering, he was still all in. Seven years into their friendship, a plumbing disaster leads her to have to live with him a while, and for the first time she’s questioning her dating embargo, which is complicated by Rahul desperately trying to maintain the boundaries he’s put in place the last seven years so as not to scare her off.
As with most Talia Hibbert books, this story is about characters with a LOT of work to do on themselves and with each other, and about all the good and bad ways they go about it. I’m not usually a big fan of books about men long-term-pining for their female friends (feels dangerously close to incel friendzone nonsense even when it’s clear that’s not how the character is written, because he’s written by a woman), but Rahul is genuinely great and I’m glad things worked out for him.
Rating: 4/5
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Next week, I’ll be going for the hat trick with my third “fake dating” roundup, though with a twist that ups the stakes: fake engagement!
What should I be reading next? Let me know in the comments!